Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/260

 there ought to be a separate chief good for each description of creature. But as he had placed man in such a class that he attributed to him excellence of mind, he determined that his chief good was not that he appeared to excel in mind, but that he appeared to be nothing else but mind.

XII. But in one case the chief good might rightly be placed in virtue alone, if there were any animal which consisted wholly of mind; and that, too, in such a manner that that mind had in itself nothing that was according to nature, as health is. But it cannot even be imagined what kind of thing that is, so as not to be inconsistent with itself. But if he says that some things are obscure, and are not visible because they are very small, we also admit that; as Epicurus says of pleasure, that those pleasures which are very small are often obscured and overwhelmed. But that kind has not so many advantages of body, nor any which last so long, or are so great. Therefore, in those in which obscuration follows because of their littleness, it often happens that we confess that it makes no difference to us whether they exist at all or not; just as when the sun is out, as you yourself said, it is of no consequence to add the light of a candle, or to add a penny to the riches of Crœsus. But in those matters in which so great an obscuration does not take place, it may still be the case, that the matter which makes a difference is of no great consequence. As if, when a man had lived ten years agreeably, an additional month's life of equal pleasantness were given to him, it would be good, because any addition has some power to produce what is agreeable; but if that is not admitted, it does not follow that a happiness of life is at once put an end to.

But the goods of the body are more like this instance which I have just mentioned. For they admit of additions worthy of having pains taken about them; so that on this point the Stoics appear to me sometimes to be joking, when they say that, if a bottle or a comb were given as an addition to a life which is being passed with virtue, a wise man would rather choose that life, because these additions were given to it, but yet that he would not be happier on that account. Now, is not this simile to be upset by ridicule rather than by serious discourse? For who would not be deservedly ridiculed, if he were anxious whether he had another bottle or